"Masterminds" - Evening Gazette (Middlesbrough, England), December 27, 2014 | Online Research Library: Questia Read preview Article excerpt 1. Which actor starred as detective Magnum PI? 2. Which town in Cornwall has become famous for the number of artists who are based there because of its light? 3. Which Manx rider won five stages in the 2010 tour de France? 4. Which comedian created the characters Stavros, Tory Boy and Loadsamoney? 5. Which famous TV chef played football for Glasgow Rangers FC? 6. In the Thunderbirds TV series, which son piloted Thunderbird Two and dressed in yellow? 7. In the TV series Diagnoses Murder, who plays Dr Mark Sloan? 8. Where is the Royal Regatta held each year on the River Thames? 9. Who was the captain of the 2010 European Ryder cup team? 10. Who won 18 this year's Strictly Come Dancing final? 11. What was the name of her partner? 12. What is the capital city of Spain? 13. What is a Samoyed? 14. How many inches make a yard? 15.

Which tree grows the tallest? 16. Where is Angel Falls? 17. What was once known as a love apple? 23 18. What is Cher's real name? 19. What was the name of Lou Reed's band? 20. Who invented the lightning conductor? 21. Where in England according to Bram Stoker did Dracula first set ashore? 22. Which TV detective had a secretary called Miss Lemon? 23. In which film does British rock star David Bowie star as a goblin king? 24. How was entertainer Nicolai Poliakoff better known? 25. True or False: the Kingdom of Bahrain is an island nation?

… Subscribe to Questia and enjoy: Full access to this article and over 10 million more from academic journals, magazines, and newspapers Over 83,000 books Access to powerful writing and research tools Article details Newspapers Encyclopedia Coco the Clown, 86 - Google Groups Coco the Clown, 86 Updated: 11:04 PM Dec 7, 2009 Death of Local Man who Portrayed 'Coco the Clown' Michael Polakovs, a man who spent his life entertaining with a huge smile and a big red nose, died during the weekend. He was better known as Coco the Clown. Posted: 10:50 PM Dec 7, 2009 Reporter: WSAZ News Staff BOYD COUNTY, Ky. (WSAZ) -- Michael Polakovs, a man who spent his life entertaining with a huge smile and a big red nose, died during the weekend. He was better known as Coco the Clown. Polakovs died Sunday; he was 86.. He performed for years with Ringling Bros. & Barnum & Bailey Circus and helped form the Ringling Bros. Clown College.

He was presented with a lifetime achievement award in September 2008. > Updated: 11:04 PM Dec 7, 2009 < snip > Clowns < shiver > stay dead, don't they? - nilita, coulrophobic > Updated: 11:04 PM Dec 7, 2009 > > Death of Local Man who Portrayed 'Coco the Clown' > Michael Polakovs, a man who spent his life entertaining with a huge > smile and a big red nose, died during the weekend. He was better known > as Coco the Clown. > Posted: 10:50 PM Dec 7, 2009 > Reporter: WSAZ News Staff > BOYD COUNTY, Ky. (WSAZ) -- Michael Polakovs, a man who spent his life > entertaining with a huge smile and a big red nose, died during the > weekend. He was better known as Coco the Clown. Merry Christmas, David.

On Wed, 09 Dec 2009 01:25:56 GMT, "La N" < nilita20...@yahoo.com > wrote: >Clowns < shiver > stay dead, don't they? Maybe not. There is a guy with the same unusual last name of Polakvos who died in Britain some time before 2008. He was also a cl*wn. Guess what name he went by. On Tue, 8 Dec 2009 17:53:25 -0700, "Matthew Kruk" < nob...@home.com > wrote: >BOYD COUNTY, Ky. (WSAZ) -- Michael Polakovs, a man who spent his life >entertaining with a huge smile and a big red nose, died during the >weekend. He was better known as Coco the Clown.

[snip] I am reminded of the Mary Tyler Moore Show episode about the death of Chuckles the Clown: David Carson < da...@neosoft.com >, on Wed Dec 09 2009 07:09:26 GMT-0600 (Central Standard Time), spoke thusly: > There is a guy with the same unusual last name of > Polakvos who died in Britain some time before 2008. He was also a > cl*wn. Guess what name he went by. I found the following info regarding him: Coco the Clown Coco the Clown is a name given to various circus clowns who traditionally wear "auguste" make-up. Technically, Coco is not a whiteface clown but an auguste, a foolish character who is always on the receiving end of buckets of water and custard pies. The auguste often works with the cleverer whiteface who always gets the better of him. The most famous bearer of the title "Coco" was Nicolai Poliakoff (or Poliakovs) (1900ï¿½74).

He was buried in Woodnewton, in Northamptonshire in England and his "Coco" moniker was passed down to his sons (notably Michael, a longtime circus "Producing Clown" and creator of a much imitated "soap gag" entree) and grandsons. Michael Polakov's coco the clown was inducted into the International Clown Hall of Fame in 1991. On December 6, 2009 he passed away in Ashland, Kentucky. While the circus was principally a children's entertainment it held an enduring appeal for artists, photographers and film-makers who identified with the romantic image of skilled performers at the margins of society. Nickolai Polakovs was a Jewish Latvian who was apprenticed to the celebrated Russian clown Lazernko and went on to manage his own circus. Escaping the hardships of the Russian Revolution to join Circus Busch in Berlin he was spotted by Bertram Mills and persuaded to move to England. During the Second World War he entertained troops as a member of ENSA. In 1960 he was involved in a serious road accident prompting him to devote himself to the promotion of road safety awareness in children.

-- The Big Top home > features > The Big Top The Big Top Billy Smart When the circus came to town, This Is Your Life grabbed a ringside seat to spotlight the life stories of its most famous family names. Here’s a look at the showmen, entertainers and clowns - and the world’s greatest ringmaster – all deserving recipients of the Big Red Book * treatment… 31 December 1956 The circus owner and showman was surprised by Eamonn at London's King’s Theatre, Hammersmith . At one time Smart owned the UK’s most important travelling funfair. By 1946 he was operating a circus, which gradually grew into one of the largest circuses in Europe. James CHIPPERFIELD 13 March 1961 A member of the famous circus family, James was surprised by Eamonn in the audience of the BBC Television Theatre . His tribute includes recollections of his war service and a reunion of his circus family - including Sally the Elephant! COCO - Nicolai POLIAKOFF 15 January 1962 Coco the Clown was surprised by Eamonn while appearing with the Bertram Mills circus at London’s Olympia.

Born in Latvia, Nicolai Poliakoff created the moniker of Coco, and by the 1950s was probably the most famous clown in Britain. The show was broadcast from the BBC Television Theatre , where Coco welcomed his guests on a set styled as a circus ring. 25 February 1970 Eamonn surprised the popular clown at London’s Wembley Arena. Charlie settled in Blackpool at the outbreak of the Second World War, and began a long association with the town's Tower Circus. His popularity in the resort, and through his various television appearances, made him one of the best-known clowns in the country. Mary CHIPPERFIELD 2 March 1977 The circus entertainer was giving a talk on circus animals to children at a school in Teddington when Eamonn surprised her. Mary specialises in a chimpanzee act, and her show includes appearances by Fred the chimp and Rosie the elephant, along with a tribute from the legendary Swiss circus director Fredy Knie. Cyril MILLS 18 January 1989 Michael dressed as a ringmaster to surprise the owner of the Bertram Mills circus in a big top in Teddington.

Bertram Mills established a circus in the 1920s, and Cyril and his brother Bernard took over the running following their father's death. Cyril’s tribute reveals how he worked as an MI5 agent during the Second World War – something he was reluctant to discuss. Declassifying The Avengers' Lost Year @ The Nice Rooms Webzine ROOM 13 @ THE NICE ROOMS presents Declassifying The Avengers’ Lost Year with Alan Hayes Date of Article: 9th September 2014 Alan Hayes "I arrived on the scene midway through the 1960s and have been involved in cult TV fandom for over thirty years. Landmarks are my unintentionally hilarious debut as a Doctor Who fanzine editor in 1980 with Fury From The Deep (now published, warts and all, by Hidden Tiger Books ), the popular tapezine Sonic Waves and more recently my acclaimed websites The Avengers Declassified Randall and Hopkirk (Declassified ) and JSFnetGB It’s A Knockout.

I have also, with my wife Alys, tracked down and restored missing Avengers radio serials, produced reconstructions of lost TV programmes for StudioCanal and co-written two books about the early days of The Avengers. In 2011 I turned my hand to publishing and started Hidden Tiger Books, which has a growing catalogue that includes reference works relating to The Avengers plus Sherlock Holmes and other fiction - in addition to the Doctor Who fanzine book already mentioned. I live in a lovely part of Hertfordshire in the UK, am very happily married, and both Alys and I are owned by a cat named Zoe - The real Hidden tiger!" Alan Hayes Alan, welcome to The Nice Rooms. I have to start by asking: "Why The Avengers?" Hi Gary. Thanks for inviting me along to The Nice Rooms. I often find myself asking the same question, “Why The Avengers?” as I’ve long been involved in cult TV appreciation, since the late 1970s in fact, when I got hooked as a teenager by Doctor Who and joined the Appreciation Society.

In common with many of the friends I’ve met through my love of the series, as time passed, I got into a much wider range of television and films to the point where Doctor Who was only a much-loved part of what I was passionate about. My first encounter with The Avengers was via its mid 1970s spin-off, The New Avengers, which I loved then and still do now. In the early 1980s I belatedly discovered its predecessor care of Channel 4 UK’s very welcome repeat run of the later filmed episodes of the series. I must be honest and say that at the time, it was probably in the shadow of the likes of The Prisoner and Sapphire and Steel in my affections, but I recognised it as something special and different and enjoyed it very much. It made a beeline for my heart and then never let go. I think what makes it such an incredible series is that between its genesis in 1961 and its cancellation in 1969 (or 1977 if we count The New Avengers, which I do!), it never stood still.

It constantly evolved to the point where at times it feels like a procession of different series linked with a common character, John Steed. The Avengers is a series in which the flavour kept changing which makes revisiting it and skipping from one era to another a pleasure. When I decided I ought to learn how to build a website in 1999, I chose The Avengers as a subject, partly because it was not then well covered online, whereas other shows I loved were. Since then, my interest in the series has grown exponentially, and my appetite for production information and other morsels pertaining to the series has become a healthy obsession. At least I like to think it’s healthy! My interest in The Avengers lays mainly with the less well-known eras of the series, and this is why I’ve come to co-write two books about the first series: one in 2013 (The Strange Case of the Missing Episodes – The Lost Stories of The Avengers Series 1 ) and another that has just been published by Hidden Tiger (With Umbrella, Scotch and Cigarettes). Where did the name The Avengers come from in the first instance?

It seems that Leonard White, the series’ original producer, (pictured below left), came up with the name and ran it by ABC’s drama supervisor Sydney Newman (pictured below right). Leonard White Sydney Newman Newman (who later went on to co-create Doctor Who) didn’t like the name The Avengers as he thought it smacked of revenge but was eventually convinced by White who resorted to a dictionary to explain that avenging was a more just pursuit than revenging! Newman has, however, occasionally been credited as having come up with the name, but this appears not to have been the case. The act that Keel and Steed are avenging in the first instance (in the first ever episode, Hot Snow) is the murder of Keel’s fiancée by a gang of drug dealers. Going back to the programme's very beginnings in which Ian Hendry starred as Dr Keel; it was a very different format to the one most people equate Steed with wasn't it?

It was indeed, though there were signs of where the show was going even in those early days, with some episodes being set in typically "Avengerish" locales including circuses, zoos or funfairs, while others tackled science fiction and science fact concepts such as cryogenics, radiation, spacesuit research and even germ warfare. But you’re quite right, unlike in later years, Steed and his associate Dr Keel were downing glasses of scotch rather than champagne, and sometimes they even dispensed with the glasses! They would invariably be chain smoking through the episodes too. In fact, the title of the new book that Richard McGinlay and I have just written With Umbrella, Scotch and Cigarettes, riffs on the German title of the series "Mit Schirm, Charme und Melone" (which translates as With Umbrella, Charm and Bowler) and contrasts the grimy, noirish beginnings of the series with its more famous eras which were typified by style, panache and lashings of the best champagne.

It took a while for the bowler and umbrella to be introduced into Steed’s wardrobe, and both he and Keel occasionally donned stereotypical detective raincoats that would later become Columbo’s trademark. But they ditched those pretty quickly, thank goodness... While the first series certainly has elements of film noir, there was also a lightness of touch employed in making them, particularly in reference to the relationships between Keel, Steed and the other series regular, Carol; Keel’s nurse and receptionist at his Chelsea practice. It wasn’t all grim and humourless, there were always light-hearted moments (and sometimes, episodes), too. The accent was on adventure and excitement, though being made on videotape and sometimes even being transmitted live from the studios, the production was considerably more limited than the film series in terms of what it could do and where it could go. There were occasional pre-filmed inserts that were shot on location or - sometimes - in the studio if a sequence, maybe a fight, was thought to be particularly demanding from a technical or artistic standpoint. These were played into the final recording during the performance.

There were action sequences, though it was not possible for these to be as deftly choreographed as their film series equivalents. Essentially there was a far greater reliance on dialogue than in later years. The upshot of this is that the early years of the show, between 1961 and 1963, were generally less formulaic and predictable than the series later became. In my opinion, imagination was the big loser when the series made the transition to film. Those early productions are creaky, cheap ‘n’ cheerful, but to me they are the finest years of the series in terms of dramatic content, acting and unpredictability. While the first series certainly has elements of film noir, there was also a lightness of touch employed in making them, particularly in reference to the relationships between Keel, Steed and the other series regular, Carol; Keel’s nurse and receptionist at his Chelsea practice. It wasn’t all grim and humourless, there were always light-hearted moments (and sometimes, episodes), too.

The accent was on adventure and excitement, though being made on videotape and sometimes even being transmitted live from the studios, the production was considerably more limited than the film series in terms of what it could do and where it could go. There were occasional pre-filmed inserts that were shot on location or - sometimes - in the studio if a sequence, maybe a fight, was thought to be particularly demanding from a technical or artistic standpoint. These were played into the final recording during the performance. There were action sequences, though it was not possible for these to be as deftly choreographed as their film series equivalents. Essentially there was a far greater reliance on dialogue than in later years. The upshot of this is that the early years of the show, between 1961 and 1963, were generally less formulaic and predictable than the series later became. In my opinion, imagination was the big loser when the series made the transition to film. Those early productions are creaky, cheap ‘n’ cheerful, but to me they are the finest years of the series in terms of dramatic content, acting and unpredictability.

Interesting that you said that Series 1 visited "Avengerish locales including circuses, zoos or funfairs" is there any truth that Ian Hendry (who played Dr David Keel) used to work in a circus? He did indeed. While he was training as an actor in London he befriended Nicolai Poliakoff, who was better known as Coco the Clown, a veteran circus performer of some considerable stature. Ian was mesmerised by Coco’s routines and asked to be taught a few tricks. Coco obliged and, in return, Ian became for a while Coco’s personal secretary while continuing his studies at the Central School of Speech and Drama. Hendry became very adept at these tricks though he must have had an natural talent as, after all, he had led a motorcycle display team during National Service. He would apparently perform the tricks that Coco had taught him for anyone who cared to watch, right up until his last years. He appeared on Coco’s This Is Your Life programme in 1962. This favour was returned, in Coco’s absence, by the clown’s widow who was a guest in Hendry’s own This Is Your Life edition in 1978.

There was a great bond between the three and Ian always credited Coco as a great influence on his life and career. There were plans to exploit Hendry’s circus skills in The Avengers, but they never really came to fruition Patrick Macnee was very much the co-star at the time wasn't he? Absolutely. Macnee was the add-on, though of course an important one. The series came about in the wake of the cancellation of an earlier Ian Hendry series, Police Surgeon, and The Avengers was created solely as a vehicle for Hendry. ABC bosses were desperate to keep him working for them as they saw him as a hot property, a star of the future. Macnee was chosen at least partly because the producer, Leonard White, and ABC’s supervisor of drama, Sydney Newman had worked with him in Canada at CBC. But there would have been no Avengers without Ian Hendry. In the first year it was Hendry's show, and Macnee was the second lead. Turning to The Avengers radio series: What’s the story Alan behind the series itself, the role you played in tracking down the missing episodes and your role restoring them? The radio series was licensed by EMI, who owned The Avengers in the 1970s.

It was produced between 1971 and 1973 in Johannesburg, South Africa. Many of the cast were English ex-pats, including an excellent John Steed in Donald Monat. The series was stripped Monday to Friday on the Springbok Radio station (and this was at a time before South Africa had television – their service started in 1976). Each story was adapted from the original television scripts (film era only) and serialised in 15-minute chunks with each serial lasting between 5 and 8 episodes. Unfortunately, due to the cost of audio tape, the serials were not preserved. Instead, they were taped over with new programmes once they had been broadcast. This brought about interesting situations, where a “repeat” of a serial would actually be a re-recording because the original tapes were gone! Fortunately, there were people out in the wilds who were taping the programme each night at home, and while we don’t have access to a full run (which could have been as many as 80 serials), 19 complete serials – and one incomplete serial – survive as a result of these enthusiasts’ endeavours.

Two such people, John Wright and Barbara Peterson, kindly got in touch with me after I’d started running The Avengers on the Radio website and said “We have these recordings, would you like them?” Silly question! Consequently, my wife and I have John Wright’s off-air tapes here at home (the 19 surviving serials) and were able to borrow Barbara’s incomplete serial to add to the archive. Over a ten year period I restored these recordings and made them available via the website with the permission of the South African archives (who also received copies). How did Richard McGinlay, Alys and yourself come to write your first Avengers book The Strange Case of the Missing Episodes? Well, it all dates back to about 2009. I’d been fortunate to get hold of a handful of scripts for lost Series 1 episodes and presented detailed synopses based on them at my then new website The Avengers Declassified . This led to Jaz Wiseman, who was already a good friend, approaching me to work on the special features for the reissue of The Avengers on DVD in the UK by Optimum Releasing.

I didn’t realise back then that this would lead to me co-producing with my wife Alys 14 reconstructions of the Series 1 episodes! In these programmes, we married up off-screen Tele-Snaps and on-set stills with newly recorded narrations to explain the stories as best we could. The ones we didn’t do were not possible due to a lack of photographic materials. A little while later it occurred to me that the narration scripts could be expanded for the website and at that point, Richard contacted me by email and volunteered to help complete the expanded synopses for Series 1. The project grew and grew as we obtained further scripts and other resources. Eventually we realised that the work we were doing was quite pioneering, at least for The Avengers, and gradually the idea of producing something more permanent than a website came to us. By this time I’d already self-published a couple of books under the banner Hidden Tiger : a collection of stories written by my great-great uncle Francis W. Strapp during the 1920s and '30s when he lived in Australia entitled Tales from the Moonstone Innand a collection of Sherlock Holmes' stories written by my younger brother Paul which we called Requiem for Sherlock Holmes.

The Avengers seemed the perfect next step in this line. As for the subject material, with all the research that Richard, Alys and myself had done regarding Series 1, it was an obvious choice. What is the thinking behind the book? The Strange Case of the Missing Episodes was designed to look at Series 1 of The Avengers from the perspective of it being lost to us, at least in the most part. The idea was to breathe life into the narratives to make them accessible in as much detail as possible for the first time since 1961. Therefore the book dealt with each episode as a chapter and told their stories in present tense as if the reader were watching the episode unfold before their eyes. We also investigated the question of how the episodes came to be lost, how some were found, and what the chances of recovery are. The book was published in the summer of 2013 and met with positive reviews. One reader even said it was the best Avengersbook he’d ever read, which was very kind and unexpected. This has certainly made us ensure that anything else we write is as good as we can make it, and not just “good enough”. It certainly sounds that you leave no stone unturned when writing.

How long was it from having the initial idea for writing the book The Strange Case of The Missing Episodes to actually getting it out there ready for sale? We foolishly thought that with most of the material written for the website we could turn it around in a couple of months. We soon realised that this wouldn’t be the case as we endeavoured to revisit each of the narratives, particularly those for which sources of information were scarce (there are nine episodes for which no scripts are known to exist). For those we employed a little detective thinking; working out logical explanations that might link the unconnected plot details we had. We also used our knowledge of the other episodes to suggest likely scenarios that felt authentic. Of course, as we did this we explained our reasoning in note form in the book, so that it was clear where the educated guesswork came in. With a complete revisit of all the material, plus an essay to be written, our two month estimate was about four times that in reality. Are you able to shed any light to readers of The Nice Rooms as to how some of the first season episodes were actually lost or found and what the chances of recovery are?

It’s unclear exactly when the Series 1 episodes went missing but we have some information that clarifies things slightly, and this, and the recovery of material in America (where it was never shown!) and what the chances are of further finds, are dealt with in a lengthy introductory essay in the book. In a nutshell, this isn’t a situation like that with Doctor Who, which was sold overseas from the beginning. The Avengers didn’t break the overseas market until Series 2. No episodes of Series 1 were sold overseas until the 1990s (by which time there was just one episode, The Frighteners, in the archives). To make matters worse, and this is something that seems staggering today, 10 of the first 12 episodes of Series 1 were not even shown all over Britain! London viewers, for instance, only saw 16 of the 26 Series 1 episodes... But the whole story is in the book The Strange Case of The Missing Episodes. The Avengers 'Hot Snow' (1961) | Opening Credits - Ian Hendry (as Keel) Patrick Macnee (as Steed) And now you and Richard have written a second book about the first series of The Avengers.

What brought you back to it? The fact of the matter is that The Strange Case of the Missing Episodes was not our first idea for a book about Series 1, and the new one has actually been in planning and preparation for even longer than the one released first! Is there really that much to be said about the first series of The Avengers that warrants two books? Definitely. It’s the great unknown of The Avengers. The series that’s lost and mysterious. The first book told the actual stories in detail and looked at the missing episodes question, while this new one looks at the first year from the perspective of production, personnel, transmission, reaction and legacy. There are a great many behind-the-scenes stories that we’ve uncovered, fascinating facts about all the aspects we’re discussing, and some things that very definitely bust myths. The subject we’re covering has been tackled before by other authors but not in the sort of depth that we’ve endeavoured to go into – incidentally, in saying that we do not mean any disservice to any of those authors.

Most Avengers books aren’t anywhere near the length of With Umbrella, Scotch and Cigarettes (which is almost 400 pages) and none of those devote themselves to just one year (except our first one!). It’s packed with information, a lot of it new, and includes two lengthy essays to top and tail it. Also featured are a series of illustrations, commissioned from artist Shaqui Le Vesconte. We originally approached Shaqui as, being an unauthorised publication, we can’t use photos from the series, so we thought having some artwork would be nice. Having seen what Shaqui has come up with, we are now absolutely delighted that we can’t use photos, as his illustrations are so much better! We’ve also included about 60 pages of appendices which cover unused storylines, the further adventures of Keel and Steed, a merchandise guide and a chronology of events. So yes, there is plenty to be said about Series 1, but after this, we’re moving on to pastures new! As to what, well, that’ll be an unexpected surprise for people hidden away at the back of With Umbrella, Scotch and Cigarettes!

Has your website The Avengers Declassified had to take a back seat during the work on your books? Yes, Richard and I have been sidetracked by writing the books. It’s unfortunate, but we feel the books are more important – and permanent. However, there’s a wealth of information at the site, mainly about the less well-known eras and spin-offs of the show. Series 1 is covered, but not in the same detail as in the books, while spin-offs like the stage show, the radio series, the recent fan animations and Big Finish audio adaptations are also covered in some depth. So what does the future hold for you and Richard? Well, we are already working on the next project, a book about a series which will be familiar in name – but not necessarily any more than that – to Avengers fans. We’ve been writing it in tandem with With Umbrella, Scotch and Cigarettes, so its publication should be no more than a few months off. As with The Avengers book, we’ve been lucky enough to have the assistance of people who worked on the series, help from archives and libraries, and it’s all very exciting.

After that, I think we will probably collapse in a heap before returning to posting interesting updates to The Avengers Declassified ! Thanks for your kind questions - I’m honoured to have a place in such a nice set of Nice Rooms! It’s been a pleasure. My grateful thanks to Alan Hayes for the interview. Alan's associated websites can be found by clicking on the following: Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College H Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College is an Academy secondary school located in New Cross. The school was formerly a Grammar school , then a comprehensive City Technology College and now an Academy operating between two sites near New Cross Gate in South-East London . In 2005 the Federation of Haberdashers’ Aske’s Hatcham College and Haberdashers’ Aske’s Knights Academy (formerly the failing Malory School, Downham) was formed by the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers to create the [ Haberdashers' Aske's Academies Federation] in order to increase the availability of an Askes’ education to more students and make a wider use of the strengths that Aske’s has to offer.

Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College now has academy status specialising in music. It also has the distinction of being the most over-subscribed state school in the country, with on average 2,500 applications for its annual intake of approximately 200 year 7 students. As of August 2007, Aske's GCSE results were rated the 3rd best in London and the 13th best in the country of all non-selective schools, according to the Guardian newspaper. As of 2009, Aske's GCSE results were rated 10th best in the country for all state schools and best in London History After a bequest made by the merchant Robert Aske to the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers on his death in 1689, a school and almshouses were built at Hoxton near the city of London. When, in 1874, the almshouses were closed, the school was enlarged and split into two parts, one north of the river and one south.

The northern section was established in Hampstead, eventually becoming Haberdashers' Aske's Boys School, while for the southern section, land was purchased at Hatcham, now better known as New Cross Gate, for the foundation of boys' and girls' schools on what is now known as Telegraph Hill. The north London school became generally known as "Haberdashers'", while the south London schools became generally known as "Aske's", though their official titles were parallel. Former pupils of the Hatcham schools are called "Old Askeans". Two schools were complete on the site now on Pepys Road by late 1875, and in 1889 the site now on Jerningham Road was purchased and the girls' school relocated to the new site. Under the Education Act 1944 the two schools became Grammar schools, and in 1979 became Comprehensive schools . In a highly controversial move a failing local primary school, Monson Road, was closed, to re-open as Temple Grove Hatcham and incorporated with the college, giving all pupils preferential and automatic rights to attend secondary education at Aske's.

Current organization In 1995 the two schools were combined under a single headteacher (Dr Elizabeth Sidwell - formerly girls' school headteacher and now the chief executive officer of the federation), and the name Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College. Teaching continues to be largely single-sex except for the co-educational sixth form. Boys and girls were generally taught on their traditional separate sites until 2002, when the boys' and girls' sites were re-organised as lower-school and upper-school sites. Years 7, 8 and 9 are based at the Jerningham Road site; years 10, 11 and the 6th Form are based at the Pepys Road site. The school sports field is located close by on St. Asaph Road in Nunhead. The current College Principal is Mr Declan Jones, who was previously deputy Principal and replaced Mrs Michelle Adamson. Dr Elizabeth M Sidwell became the CEO of the [ Haberdashers' Aske's Academies Federation] after holding the position of Principal until the creation of the federation. The forms in each year belong to one of four houses.

These are named after significant figures in the college's history and are identified by colours. The students belong to the same house for their school life and belong to either Connolly - Green (formerly Doigs/Lawrences), Dyson - Red (formerly Mackenzies/Jethas), Goddard - Blue (formerly Dodkins/Crockets) or Soper - Yellow (formerly Fords/Patricks); all are named after previous headmasters or headmistresses (formerly heads of houses, Mr Doig, Miss F Mackenzie, Mr Dodkins and Mrs Ford), with the exception of the last, in honour of distinguished Old Askean Donald Soper. The students wear a blue school tie with stripes in their house colour. The school badge is the coat of arms of the Haberdashers' Company, and displays the motto "Serve And Obey". Haberdasher's Askes' Crayford Academy This is a new all through primary and secondary phase with a sixth form which the Haberdashers Foundation are building in Crayford. The Secondary Phase will be run by Mr David Willis who was a deputy principal at Haberdashers Askes and the primary phase with by run by Mrs Susan Bush.

The academy will be specialised in Technolgy, like Haberdashers Askes Hatcham College is speciallised in music and Haberdashers Askes Knights Academy are specialised in sports. Notable "Old Askeans" Fiona Bruce, Newsreader and television presenter Melvyn Gale, Cellist, Electric Light Orchestra Steve Harley ("Steve Nice"), Lead Singer,Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel. Clive Jackson, Lead Singer, Doctor and the Medics Nicolai Poliakoff, aka. Coco The Clown Fr Roger Jupp, Former Bishop of Popondota, Papua New Guinea Chris Lambert, Olympic sprinter James O'Dea, President of The Institute of Noetic Sciences Scott Parker, Football Player Oliver Stirrup, Guitarist in folk trio Milkwood Peter Perrett, Lead singer & songwriter, The Only Ones Harry Price, Psychic research pioneer Ryan Purcell, Guitarist, Thee Landells The Rev'd the Lord Soper (Donald Soper), Methodist minister and campaigner Rafe Spall, Actor Damian Marley,Grammy award-winning reggae artist, son of reggae legend Bob Marley.

Harry Evans,Leader of the Movement for Postmodern Marxism (MPM) Barnes Wallis,Scientist, inventor of the Bouncing bomb Shaun Wright-Phillips, Football Player Sid Green and Dick Hills, screen-writing partnership, best known for the Morecombe & Wise scripts. Drew McConnell, Bass Guitarist, Babyshambles. Vaughan Savidge, Radio Broadcaster Mark Rothko’s homecoming Mark Rothko’s homecoming A new art centre is commemorating the émigré artist in his Latvian birthplace Read next by: Philip Dodd Rothko photographed in the 1950s by Consuelo Kanaga Nicolai Poliakoff (Coco the Clown) was born there – as was Joseph Rosen, described as the Talmudic genius of his time. In 1903 Marcus Yakovlevich Rothkowitz was also born in the same city, Daugavpils in eastern Latvia. We know him rather better as Mark Rothko, one of the greatest artists of the postwar period, whose colour-field paintings have become touchstones of heroic art.

When his large sunset-coloured 1961 canvas “Orange, Red, Yellow” sold at Christie’s New York in 2012 for $86.9m (£53.8m), it set the price record for any work of contemporary art. Now, 110 years after Rothko was born here, and 100 years after he left for Portland, Oregon, with his mother, he has come home to Daugavpils in the form of the Mark Rothko Art Center. Driving down to the city from Riga, I passed Russian Orthodox churches with golden domes, what looked like a Soviet-style palace of culture, an unending line of birch trees, storks’ nests on telegraph wires – and, punctuating the 250km route, memorials of the execution grounds where the Nazis murdered the country’s Jewish inhabitants. Latvia was once one of the dark places of the earth and it is still a complex place, suffering badly in the 2008 crash and still beset by major economic problems. It is this world that the Mark Rothko Center joined on Wednesday.

The Rothko family has made a generous long-term loan of six works, soon to be supplemented by a further two paintings from the National Gallery in Washington. The opening is more than a sentimental homecoming, though. It is a historic occasion – the centre looses Rothko’s work into eastern Europe for the first time. No one can fully predict the effects of the centre on the region’s cultural scene and artists, or on the local tourist economy, but the authorities certainly have high hopes. The name Daugavpils would have meant nothing to the young Marcus Rothkowitz. For him the city was known as Dvinsk, part of the Russian Empire and a centre of Jewish thought. At least 50 per cent of its population was Jewish, and there were 48 synagogues. Rothko’s family was cultured, his father a pharmacist. History later had its ugly way with the city and its Jewish population – the Russian pogroms began in 1910, and later, catastrophically, the Nazis occupied Latvia. Only 12,000 of the Jewish population of 55,000 survived the occupation. Later still it was part of the Soviet Union.

Now there are only around 400 people of Jewish descent living there. Farida Zaletilo, curator at the new Daugavpils centre and the original advocate for its creation, pictured with Rothko’s ‘Mother and Child’ (1940) Farida Zaletilo, 57, quiet and small, is to the Mark Rothko Art Center what Sam Wanamaker was to Shakespeare’s Globe in London – an irresistibly determined force and probably downright nuisance who has made sure that the centre opened. Zaletilo is a resident of the city and now a Latvian. But her Muslim family were St Petersburg residents until carted off by the Nazis – her grandfather died in the camps. When Zaletilo was working at the Daugavpils City Museum of Regional Studies in the 1990s, someone mentioned that Mark Rothko had been born there. “I had not heard of him,” Zaletilo tells me. “I could find no relevant books and catalogues – there was no internet café then in Daugavpils.” She could not even find material in St Petersburg. On Dalí, de Kooning, and Chagall, yes – but not on Rothko.

She made a study-visit to the Hague State archives, immersed herself in Rothko, saw an important exhibition of the artist in 2001 at the Beyeler Foundation in Basel – and became an unstoppable advocate of the art centre. It has not been easy. It took Zaletilo two years to find her way to the Rothko family; and when she began to petition in Riga, the Latvian capital, for some commemoration of one of the country’s most famous sons, one initial response was: “No one will be interested in an American Jew around here.” Both of Mark Rothko’s children – Kate Rothko Prizel, 62, and her brother Christopher, now 48 – were at the opening. It was Kate – Christopher was only six when his father killed himself in his studio, in 1970 – who took on and defeated their father’s executors and the formidable might of the Marlborough Gallery in a lengthy legal struggle over the family’s ownership of some of his works (which were already then, as now, extraordinarily valuable).

Mark Rothko’s children, Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko, with 1948’s ‘Untitled (Multiform)’ Both Kate and Christopher have not only loaned works to the centre but have restored a Daugavpils synagogue – as much a soup kitchen as a place of worship, Christopher tells me, in a measured tone, matching his rather formal suit and tie. He recalls his and his sister’s own first visit to the city in 2003, to mark his father’s centennial celebration. When they arrived, they were greeted by children in traditional garb and offered beer and pretzel. Then as they drove through the city, they passed the old prison, where they could hear inmates shouting. Daugavpils, like the rest of Latvia, was then (and probably still is) in transition. The country became a sovereign nation again in 1991, with all the problems that sudden liberation brought. Daugavpils, Latvia’s second-largest city, is still very much “Russian” – more than 50 per cent of its residents have Russian as their first language – but it is also a border town, close to Belarus and Lithuania, as well as Russia.

The Mark Rothko Art Center is confirmation of its cosmopolitan history and a promise that the place will become so again. Kate, more ebullient than her brother, tells me that, “honestly, I do not know how my father would have felt about the homecoming but I think he would have been excited”. His memories of the place were good, she says. “He would show it to me on the map, say it was part of the tsarist empire. He talked of ice-skating on the river” – but thinks that was probably apocryphal. After all, he was no one’s idea of a sportsman. There’s no doubt that Zaletilo and Kate and Christopher Rothko all hope that the centre can act as an engine of cultural change. “The past can’t be erased,” Kate tells me, but there is a chance that the centre can be a culture space for the wider region – for Lithuania and Belarus as well as Latvia. “My father’s reputation is sufficiently secure not to need another Rothko museum,” says Christopher. So what attracted them to this project was that the centre would also be a home for symposia, conferences, an artist-in-residence programme, other international exhibitions and recitals.

The fortress that has been transformed into the centre was set up under Tsar Nicolas I in 1833 as an ammunition depot and became a military barracks for cadets in the Soviet era. It’s a large, two-storey, yellow-painted building, with some 2,500 sq metres of exhibition space. Opening ceremony for the Mark Rothko Art Center in the Latvian city Daugavpils The Rothko paintings themselves take up only a single gallery – although that is partly a matter of money (only one gallery has the right climate control conditions). The six Rothko works include a startling 1940 “Mother and Child”, with two nude figures enclosed in a space where the walls look eerily like the Seagram Murals he would paint later; a rather beautiful 1948 painting of “Multiforms” in which the viewer might lose himself; as well as “No 10 (Brown, Black, Siena Dark Wine)” of 1963, one of those glowing colour-field paintings most associated with the painter.

The rest of the centre is a potpourri: there is a Silence Room next to the Rothko Gallery for contemplation; projections of Rothko family photographs and of the artist’s works. Upstairs galleries are given over to the work of an important Latvian ceramicist, Peters Martinsons, and a print exhibition of British painter Peter Griffin, its current artist-in-residence. There are plans for a creative industries club, and space for conferences and seminars. The centre hopes the single but compelling Rothko room will promote culture in the region. Daugavpils may be a long way from Margate in England (home to the Turner Contemporary gallery) or Washington, but these places are all counting on culture to drive regeneration. The Mark Rothko Art Center is 85 per cent funded by the EU’s Structural Fund (as well as by the local authority) as part of the EU’s efforts to help Latvia “modernise”. On Wednesday – spring came late this year, with one-metre thick ice melting suddenly and overflowing river banks – it was hard not to be borne along by the optimism.

Lutheran, Catholic and Russian Orthodox priests gave a benediction to the building, a Finnish accordion superstar played a gig in the courtyard outside and the Rothko art community from Basel to New York was present, as well as a high-ranking member of the Latvian government. And at the end of a long arched corridor are the Mark Rothko paintings, a quiet and commanding presence among the noise and celebrations. They are the still point of this particular turning world.

Question: How was the entertainer Nicolai Poliakoff better known?
Answer: COCO THE CLOWN